Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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I"; . ? V THE SONO FOR BREAD. In the market place in the early morn & * A poet stood, and he sang for bread. Some passed him by with a glance of scorn, And some who pitied his look forlorn Flung him a coin instead . The King came out for his morning ride ? In golden laces and velvet dressed, "And the threadbare poet was pushed aside, And he crept away to the wood and died, With hie lvro tft hi<5 hnsnm nrpss<?.-l_ His cold, dead hand in the brook afloat. They found him there on the daisied so J? And they buried him deep in his shabby coat, With never a prayer or a sacred note To waft his soul to tfod. The wood is felled, and the King is dead. The steps of his palace are greeu with mold, But the song that the poet sang for bread Has bound th9 world with a silver thread And girdled it round with gold. ? ;.?Minnie Irving. -? ?? Chastening a Coquette. BY LOIS on BY. ^ The ponderous portals closod and a young man camc down the steps. At jL'.r the foot he encountered another man who, at that iostant, chanced to be passing by. In the white glare of the electric lights they recoguized each other with an exclamation. y They had gone a fevr paces side by side before the older man observed: ' Youhave beeD enjoying Sirs. Percival's society again, I see." "I dined there?ye3," was the vouag man's brief reply. He was a handsome youth, olivecheeked, slender, dark-eyed. There was an air of exaltation, a suoauea yec feverish excitement about him, which did not pass unnoticed by Hugh Thatcher's older, calmer vision. He smothered .an inclination either to smile or to sigh; he scarcely knew which himself. Then his face grew grav?. 'I wish you would give this thing up, P Ramon," he said abruptly. "Give up? Give what up?" There was a guarded gleam in the young man's Br-, eye. 'Don't fence. We understand each other, I thick. Give up your infatuation for Mrs. Pcecival." I, "Upon my word!" The voice was unsteady with boyish resentment, boyish indignation. "You take a good deal -upon yourself, Thatcher. I suppose you think because you once saved my life?" <lUh, don t Dnng mac up, ray uuar j fellow. My chance assistance oa that occasion could not be called saving your life. If I touch upon this subject it is with no such warrant as that. I feel an interest in you; your people were kindness itself to me when I was a stranger among strangers?and?I know Mrs. Percival better than you do." Ramon Suarez gave an inarticulate exjf r clamation. He threw back the light surtout that masked his dress suit as though somethiug suffocated him. "You have intimated that before. What do you mean by it?" <(Weli, briefly, that Mrs. Percival is a ? "Ah! Evidently you were bitten ?oms time yovr^elf," ? Thatcher took no heed of the sarcasm. "She will amuse herself playing witli your admiratioa, your passion, and when she tires of them she will toss you away ?r- like a soiled glove. The simile is old, but new enough for the purpose." "Caramba? You must have been illused !" Still Thatcher maintained his irnper'iurbableness. "But there is another point," he resumed after a moment's silence. "You used to be an honorable man, Ramon." A light shiver ran over the Spaniard. What of Mercedes?" :i*' There was a pause. * 'l?I jovc Mercedes yet. But?this * ?is"different," said Ramon heavily un^der his breath. "Ah!" r *'Yes, it is different!" The riotous young blood in him took fire. "Mercedes is everything that is lovely on this earth, but she?she?holds every fibre of my being in her hands! How does she do it? Don't ask me. I don't know! I am conscious of her everywhere?iu everything. And this is the 'infatuation' you advise me to give up, as though it were a habit?like smoking?to be broken off from one hour to another!" He stopped short, drawing a fierce, decisive breath. "You may have been illused by her, but you never felt her spell, or you would not speak to me as you have?" * * * * The faint musical cathedral chime of a Sevres clock struck the hour and.Mrs. Percival glanced down at the rings on her hands. At the instant the portieres partea ana nugn inarcner cams in. ' Punctual as ever!" observed the lady. "I had the pleasure of writing you a note asking for an appointment. You were kind enough to reply, mentioning an hour. "What else could I be but ; , punctual?" "Ah? Severely reasonable, too, as ever1" mocked the red lips. The mockery slipped oil and away from Thatcher's calmness, lie leaned I back in his chair and looked at her. In seven years he had not seen her save at a distauce, in causal, momentary meetings in crowded rooms; never in this way; never alone. Was she really a beauty, or was it the flower of her consummate charm that she should seem so to be? "Well, what are the results of your reflections? If I remember rightly you used to think it uDpardouable to stare at a woman; now?" "I was thinking that you have not changed in seven years." Something?the shadow of some in% ward presence instantly crushed out of ilife?flashed over the brilliant, taunting, dazzling face before him. "You expected to find me grown decrepit? To be sure twenty-seven is a ! tragic age for a woman. Yon should not remind her of a past seven years dead. ; Seven years! Think of it:" "No,"said Thatchcr, pursuing his owu ! train of thought undaunted, "they have not counted with you. They have with me; but not with you. If they had you would still blind people so that they would not see it. That is what I have come to talk to you about. You have been blinding a poor fciiow in whom I 1 have au interest. You know that I speak j of Ramou Suarcz, of course! Come! Be | merciful for once! Don't dazzle him further. Let him come to his seuses. I J am fond of him. His people were kind j to me when I went to South America -even years ago. I have a grate ful feeling toward any one who laid a soothing hand on my wounds thm. You see, I allude very frankly to that time. Let mo beg you again. You care nothing for the boy. You have other victims in plenty. Why not spare him? There is another reason j which should appeal to your generosity. | He is engaged to a youug girl, a cousiu of his. She is very sweet, very lovely I and she love3 him dearly. If she knew [ his fancy had been unfaithful to her it would break her heart. Curious changes had been sweeping over Mrs. Percival's face as she spoke. She held her fan before her eyes and he could not sec her. As he finished he stood up and looked down on her. The fan dropped and a countenance so rigid aud white that it startled him was upheld to meet his glance. "You despise mc!" she said with low, vibrant intensity. "You despise mc and your coming to me on such an errand proves it!" "Laura!" The old name, the name he had called her by Lcfore she became the ! wife of the man now dead, sprang to his lips before he knew what he was doing. She had risen likewise. She seemed to waver. She leaned back, still covered with this new pallor, against a dainty cabinet laden with pretty baubles that clinked together at the impact. "You think me flippant, heartless, soulless, vile!" she said. The man's slower nature was bewildered, overpowered by this sudden outbreak. She had befu to him seven years before all that she said. She had trifled with him for a richer wooer. Her treachery had taken the color and the savor out of his life. He had forgiven her but the hurt she had done him would never heal. And yet at that moment, though he believed her to have been drawing poor Ramon Suarez on for the heartless gratification of her vanity, though his cause was righteous and justice with him, he f.elt all at once bereft of support frbm truth or reason before that new strange ring in her voice. He stood there stupidly, unable to frame a connected sentence. And as he thus continued, she, with an inarticulate murmur, swept from the room. ****** "My mother has arrived from South America, and?Mercedes." Ramon Suarez spoke abruptly, standing in Ilu^h Thatcher's bachelor apartment. He was very pale. Thatcher looked up swiftly. . "Ah! Well, I am glad to hear it. Ramon." The younger man gave a sort of snarling laugh. "I don't doubt it!" He suddenly flung himself down before a table and caught his head in his hands. "But it won't make any difference, if that's what you mean," lie said hoarsely with white lips. "I'm past helping now. Mercedes?my mother?may know or not kuow. I won't change anything.'' ' Great heaven, man!" cried Thatcher sharply, "have you lost all decency? Remember what you owe to that child. Do you wish to kill her?" "Mercedes won't die of my inconstancy, Raruon said sullenly. "She may grieve awhile. Bui she will say to herself that I am a base wrctch, and she will forget me." "And do you fancy," asked Thatcher slowly, after a moment, "that Mrs. Percival will marry you oncc you have broken your engagement?" The young man looked up. "Thatcher! What do you mean by taking that tone with me?" "I am asking you a plain question." Ramon started up and walked the length of the room. When he came Koolr wna n look in his eves, a look of being driven to bay, of stolid, hunted desperation, that gave his companion for the ffrst time an insight into the full depth of his passion. Before he had thought it largely a boyish fancy. Now? "I don't know whether she will marry me or not. But?she would better?she would better! She has treated mc shamefully for the past few weeks? shamefully. But she must not try to play with me. Thatcher, there are times , when I almost hate her! Yet I would die ' for her to-morrow?to-night?this very i hour!" i ****** , Hugh Thatcher went about for the ' next few days with a haunting sense of ' some impending catastrophe hanging ' over him. He had kept out of the way i of Ramon's mother, fearing lest he might ] be questioned with regard to the change < that had come over the young man. As for Laura Percival. he had not seen her i c?nr>/? vi?if thrpo wflpks before, and < he had been ia a dreamy bewilderment < concerning it ever since. He had understood nothing of it all. lie had never at i any time understood her when it came ' to that. He only knew that a dull ache i he had thought stilled at last had formed part of his consciousness from that after- < uoon on. His going to her did Ramon : no good; lie had not flattered himself < that the growing coldness she had cvi- i dently evinced toward the young man of late had been the fruit of his expostulations, and /is for himself?well, it had been easier f&r him before he had scon her. If it could be helped he would never sec her again. He came home heavily from his club . one night with these thoughts in his mind. On the landing in front of his door stood a telegraph boy with a yellow envelope. Thatcher caught it out of his hand. i'Tlnnrl l^AOTfAnc I" V WJU UVUT vuu i * * * * * Ramon Suarez was lying at death's door?shot down by his own hand. Everything that followed that night? and, indeed for the next week?had to Iljgh Thatcher in after years scarce more substantiality than the events that came to men in dreams. There was a vision of a white, girlish face, drawn with agony, of an older one rigid with maternal anguish; of a third, with closed eyes, on the pillow over which the two stricken women bent. Then the dull remembrance of cease- j ? *-i i-i._ lCaS UL'WriUIIl 111 WHICH U1C liuiui; Ui uii; woman who had blasted Hugh Thatchcr's own youth recurred with a passionate persistence, with despairing cries of longing. No question was put to the friend who watched with the two women. The tireless, raving words told their own tale? told it as well as Thatcher knew it himself or could have told it. At hist a day came when the physicians, after consultation, held out a ray | of hope. "There was danger still?the condition of the mind was a great obstacle?but with great care?with time?" rjWlffiWBMU'lll ????? f ? j That same day Thatcher received a little note. Only a few very biief words. But, as he read them, he wondered, half stupidly, whether the day would ever come when any word from that source would be aught but a command for him. Mrs. Percival was waiting for him when he went in?Mrs. Percival? In the middle of the room he stopped short. A3 she first turned her face upon him he had not known her. "You?who have been ill!" he said. She did not seem to hear. "He?he is better?" she asked, speaking in a dull, rapid, altered way. "I have sent every day?twice a day?to inquire. They.have never known it, of uu uiac* "Yes. Ramon is belter. He mayit is likely that he will?live." Some dreadful tension in her appeared to give way. She breathed quickly once or twice?long breaths that were almost like gasps. "I?I waited to tell you?how it was," she resumed. She did not look at him. She held her hands clisped in front of her. The fingers were bloodless, in spots, with the pressure. "I?I tried to shake him oft?after what you told me about the girl. Then he said he would break his engagement. He asked me to marry him. I refused. It could not have been, ever! Evtr! He was mad to think of it. I told him so. And ?that night?I?I heard what he had done." "Yes," said Thatcher, after a moment. Then he added: "I think?I hope?all may still be well between them?between Ramon and that young girl. When he recovers he may appreciate what her devotion has been?and the past Trill be forgotten." She turned her white face upon him. | "I believe," she said slowly, with a sort of wonder, "that you are trying to give me a grain of comfort! There is a strange fidelity about you. You do not wish mc to reproach myself as you see that I am doing. "Well, it is something to feel one has a friend, little as one may desire it. I am going away?for a long time, perhaps?and so I don't mind saying this to you: I shall never forget the experience of the past week. How near I came, though without intention, to wrecking two lives. That girl! Howl have thought of her! There! Enough!" She broke off. "All this is mawkish, perhaps. I am a frivolous woman?the frivolous tone alone ^becomes me. Good-bye!" And yet he lingered. Then he turned toward the door. But when he had reached it ho stopped; he looked back. "Laura!" he said. ."Laura!" A little shiver ran over her. Iler eyes seemed to dilate. "Laura!" he said again. What did ho expect? He did not know. But something in her eyes had set all his pulses leaping. "Laura," he was saying, "I have loved you all these years." But she had covered her face with her hands. "Oh, no, no! Ah, how can you be so good to me! I thought you heated me, despised me!" She dropped her bauds. "That belief has been killiag me all these years?" "Laura!" "No. no: let me tell the truth once! Aud thca let me go! I loved you?always?always?even when I sent you away! If I seemed to flirt and draw men on, it was to cheat the pain here!" She struck her breast. "And now you must let me gol You must let me gol Hugh!" She was tight locked in his arras. When she raised her face again she looked as she had done eight years before when they had first loved each other. And Husrh bent and kissed her lip3.? New York Mercury. Fruit-Eating Animals. Comment has lately been made about mice eating oranges, of horses also and dogs eating the same. It is not generally known to what extent animals are fruit eaters. The fig is the favorite fruit among ani rnals, and horses, cows, hogs, sheep and goats will eat this fruit as readily as man. The elephant considers it a dainty, while ill the fowls greedily devour figs. The apple ranks high in favor, and horses, cows, sheep, goats, hogs and many of the wild animals eat apples with avidity. The elephant and deer arc fond of them, while others become accustomed to them ifter a trial or two. All the domestic ? 3 r ?U L tow is ana many 01 me wnu uirua arc iuuh >f apples. The cherry is a delicacy much sought ifter by the whole feathered tribe. The jstrich will consume half a dozen kinds jf fruit. Peachcs are not a favorite except with i few animals, though rabbits fancy them, [t is well known that rabbits, rats and squirrels all eat apples. The Esquimau dogs will cat almost any of the dried fruits. The sour or acid fruits, as the orange, lemon, lime, shaddock, etc., as well as the sour plums and vUrt om roi-nlr I UL" UIUUl VIU^O Uib ouvij vitw u. * ing, we think, is so bitter as an olive freshly pickled, yet after they turn purple or black hogs soon learn to devour them. The sweet and luscious grapes arc eaten with great relish by horses, cows aud sheep. Deer are fond of grapes, and often do much damage in California vintyards. Hogs will fatten upon grapes, rabbits love them, aud a number of the wild animals, as the elephant and camel, will cat them. The camel will eat figs with all the relish that a person will.? Orooille (Cal.) Register. Cultivated Rice. Ricc was first produced from a wild plant culled in India nivara. The wild plants grow on the border of the lakes in India, and also in Australia. Some wild varieties are quite numerous, some kinds being adapted to marshy lands and some to highlands, the latter being cultivated like corn. Rice was known in China 2SOO years before Christ. It is not mentioned in the liiblc, but is referred to in the Talmud. It was known in Syria 400 year* before Christ, was first introduced into Italy in 1468 and into the Carolinas in 1700. The best lands for rice culture are level marshes, where they can be drained and flooded at will. Louisiana aad especially the parishes Cameron, Vermillion and Calcasieu contain large areas of the finest rice lands in the world. The time is not far distant when these lands will produce a large ] portion of the rice consumed in tfie United States. At the present time the farmers in the parish of Calcasieu are j raising annually over fifty thousand bar-; rels of the finest quality.?New York Herald. ' REV. DK. TALMAGE. THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUN* v DAY SERMON. "'Subject: "The Lessons of \yinter." F Text: "Hast thoueiMred into the treas- J t>;esof the snow?'?Job xxxviii., 22. ' Grossly maligned is the season of winter. The spring ana summer and autumn have had man* admirers, but winter, hoary headed and white bearded winter, hatb had more enemies than friends. Yet without winter the human race would oe inane and effortless. You might speak of the winter aa the mother of tempests. I take it as tha father of a whole family of physical, mental and spiritual energies. The most people that 1 know aro strong in proportion to the number of snow banks they had 1o climb over or fiush through in childhood, while their athers drove the sled loaded with logs through the crunching drifSs high as the fences. At this season of the year, when we are 60 familiar with the snow, those frozen vappors, those falling blossoms of th9 sky, those white angels of the atmosphere, those poems of the storm, those Iliads and Odyssoys of thft winter* temnest. I turn ovor the lpnvw: of my Bible and?though most of it was written in a climo whsre snow seldom or never fell?I find many o? these beautiful congelations. Though tli9 writers may seldom or never have felt the cold touch of the snowflake on their che9k, they had in sight two mountains, the tops of which were suggestive. Other kings sometim93 take off their crowns, but Lebanon and Mount Hermou all the year rouud and through the ages never lift the coronets o? crystal from their foreheads. The first time we find a deep fall of snow in the Bible is where Samuel describes a fight between Benaiah and a lion in a pit. ana tnouga tne snow may nave crimsoned under the wounds of both man and brute, the shaggy monster rolled over dead, and the giant was victor. But the snow is not fully recognized in the Bible until God interrogates Job, the scientist, concerning its wonders, saying, "Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow?" I rather think that Job may have examined the snowflake with a microscopa; for, although it is supposed that the microscopa was invented long after Job's time, there had been wonders of glass long before the microscope and telescope of later day were thought of. So long ago as when tne Coliseum was in its full splendor, Nero sat in the emperor's box of that great theatre, which held a hundred thousand people, and looked at the combatants through a gem in his finger ring which brought everything close up to his eye. Four hundred years before Christ, in the stores at Athens, were sold nowerful classes called "burning spheres," and Layard, the explorer, found a magnifying glass amid the ruius of Nineveh and in the palace of Nimrod. Whether through magnifying instrument or with unaided eye I cannot say. but I am sure that Job somehow went through the galleries of the snowflake and counted its pillars and found wonders, raptures, mysteries, theologies, majesties, infinities walking up and down its corridors, as a result of the question which the Lord had asked him,' "Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow*>" Oh, it is a wonderous meteor! Memboldt 6tudied it in the Andes, twelve thousand feot above the level of the sea. De Saussura reveled among these meteors in the Alps, and Dr. Scoresby counted ninety-six varieties of snowflake amid the arctics. They are in shape of stars, in shape of coronets, in shape of cylinders; are globular, are hexagonal, are pyramidal, are castellated. After a fresh fall of snow, in one walk you crush under your feet, Tuilleries, Windsor castles. St. Pauls, St. Peters, St. Mark3, cathedrals. Alhambras and Sydenham palaces innumerable. I know it depends much on our own condition what impression these flying meteors of the snow make. I shall not forcet two roueh and unord- i tending wood cuts which I saw iu my boyhood side by side: one a picture of a prosperous farmhouse, with all signs of comfort, and a lad warmly clothed looking out of the door upon the first flurry of snow, and his mind no doubt filled with the sound of jingling sleigh bells and the frolic with playfellows in the deep bauks, and he, clapping hia hands and shouting, "It snows! it snows!" The other sketsh was of a boy, haggard and hollow eyed with hunger, looking from the broken door of a wretched home, and seeing in the falling flakes prophecy of more cold and less breadan l greater privation, wringing his hands and with tears rolling down bis wan cheeks crying, "Oh, my God! it snows! it snows!" Out of the abundance that characterizes mo>t of our homes may thero be speedy relief to all whom thi3 winter findsin want and exposure. And now I propose, for your spiritual and everlasting profit, if you will accept my guid ance. to take vou through some of these won- ; ders of crystallization. "And notice first God in the littles. You may take alpenstock and cross the Mer de Glace, the sea of ice, and ascand Mout Blanc, which rises into the clouds like a pillar of the great white Thron?, or with arctic explorer ascend the mountains around the north pole, and see glaciers a thousand feet high grinding against glaciers three thousand feet high. But I will take you on a less pretentious journey and show you God in the snowfluke. There is room enough between its pillars for the great Jehovan to stand. In that one frozen drop on the tip of your liuger you may find the throne room of the Almighty. I talce up the snow in my hand and see the coursers of celestial dominion pawing these crystal pavements. The telescope 13 grand, but I must confess that I am quite as much interested in the microscope. The one reveals the universe above us; the other just as great a universe beneath us. But the telescope overwhelms me, while the microscope comforts me. What rou want aud I want especially is a God in littles. If we were scraphic or archan^olic in our natures we would waut to study God in tho great; but such small, wealc, shortlived beings as you and I are want to find God in the little. When I see the Makei' of the universe giving Himself to the architecture of a snowflake, and making its shafts, its domes, its curves, its walls, its irradiations so perfect I conclude Ho will look after our insignificant affairs. And if we are of mora value than a sparrow, most certainly we are of more value than an inanimate suowflake. So the Bible would chiefly impress us with God in the littles. It does not say, "Consider the clouds," but it says, "Consider the lilies." It do2s not say, "Behold the tempests!'' but "Behold the fowls V aud it applauds a cup of cold water aud the widow's two mites, and feuys tho hairs of your head are all numbered. Bo not fear, t'.ereforc, that you are going to be lost in the crowd. Do not think that because you estimate yourself as only one snowflake among a three days' January snow storm that you will be forgotten. The birth and death of a drop of chil/ed vapor is as certaiuly regarded by the Lor: as the creation and demolition of a planet. Nothing is bip: to God and nothing is small. What makes the honey industries of South Carolina such a source of livelihood aud wealth? It is because God teaches the ladybug to make an opening in the rind of tuo apricot for the bee, who cannot otherwise get at the juices of the fruit. So God sends the ladybug ahead to prepare the way for the honey bee. He teacht!, the ant to bite each grain of corn that she puts in the ground for winter fool in order that it may not take root and so ruin the little granary. He teaches the raven in dry weather to throw Debbles into a hollow tree, that the water far down and out of reach may corns up within the reach of the bird's beak. What a comfort that He is a God in littles! The emperor of all the Russias in olden time was looking at a map that spread before him his vast dominions, and he could not find Great Brit-; ain on the map, and he called in his secretary and said: "VVherj is Great Britain, that I hear so much about?*' '*!(; is uuder your thumb," said the secretary: aa.l the ornperor raiso.1 his haul from tiu rnin and saw the country he was looking for. And it is high time that we find this Blighty reo'.rr of God close by and under our own little finger. To drop you out of His memory would be to resign His omniscience. To refuse you His protectionwould be to ab dicate His omnipotence. When you ten me that He is the Gofl of Juoitor,and the God of Mercury, and the God of Saturn, you tell me something so vast that I cannot comprehend it. But if you tell me He is the God of tho snowflake, you tell me something I can hold and measure and realize. Thus the smallest snowflake contains a jewel case of comfort. Here is an opal, an amethyist, a diamond. Here is one of the treasures of suovr. Take it for your present and everlasting comfort. Behold, also, in the enow the treasure of accumulated power. During a snow storm let an apothecary, accustomed to weigh most delicate quantities, hold his woighing scales out of the window and let one flake fall on the surfaoe of theacalee, and it wiUnot even / " . " ? ' mafce It tremble. When you. want to express extreme triviality of weight you say, 'Light as a feather, but a snowflake it much lighter. It is just twenty-four times lighter than water. And yet the accumulation of these flakes broke down, a few daya ago, in sight of my house, six telegraph poles, made helpless police and Are departments and halted rail trains with two thundering locomotives. We have already leaimd' so much of fhe power of electricity that we have become careful how we touch the electric wire, and | in many a case a touch has bsen death. But 1 a few days ago the snow put its hand on mo3t of these wires, and tore them down as though they were cobwebs. The snow said: "You seem afraid of the thunderbolt- I will catch If onH liiirl if fn fV?c\ <rrAiin'1 v"nm? V?A<?ofa'l electric lights adorning your cities with bubbles of Are, FwOTpnt out" as easily as your aucestors snuffed out a tallow candle." The snow put its finger on the lip of our cities that were talking with each other and they went into silence, uttering not a word. The snow mightier than the lightning. In March, 1888, the snow stopped America. It said to Brooklyn, "Stay home!" to New York, "Stay homer'to Philadelphia, "Stay home!" to Washington, "Stay home!" to Richmond, "Stay home!" It put into a white sepulcher most of this nation. Commerce, whose wheels never stopped before, stopped then. What was the matter? Power of accumulated snowflakes. On the top of fh<a A nannmnc nno flolrp falls ftnri Iflll. and they pile up, and they make a mountain of fleece on the top of a mountain of rock, until one day a gust of wind, or even tue voice of a mountaineer, sets the frozen vapors into action, and by awful descent they sweep everything in their course?trees, roiks, villages?as when in 1827 the town of Bnel, in Valais, was buried, and in 1634,in Switzsrland, three hundred soldiers were entombed. These avalanches were made up of single snowflakes. What tragedies of the snow have been witnessed by the monks of St. Bsraard, who for ag?s have with the dogs bean, busy in extricating bawildered and overwhelmed travelers in Alpine storms, the dogs with blankets fastened to their backs and flasks of spirits fastened to their necks to resuscitate helpless travelers, one of these dogs decorated with a medal for having saved the lives of twenty-two persons, the brave beast himself slain of the snow on that day when accompanying a Piedmontese courier on the way to nis anxious household down the mountain, the wife and children of the Piedmontese courier coming up the mountain in search of him, an avalanche covered all un ler pyra mids higher than those trnder which the Egyptian moaarchs sleep their sleep of tha oges! Whst an illustration of the tragedies of tlie snow is found in that scene betweau Glencoe and Glencraran one February in Scotland, where Ronald Cameron comes forth to bring to his father's house his cousin Flora McDonald for the celebration of a birthday, and the calm day turns into a hurricane of white fury that leaves Ronald and Flora as dead, to be resuscitated by the shepherds! What an exciting struggle 1 1 T> -J rr urmfrv nau uayai a iaji iui nuiuu^ >ud < mvi; Apennines I In the winter of 1812, by a similar fores, the destiny of Europe was decided. The French armv marched ap toward Moscow Ave hundred thousand men. What can resist them? Not bayonets, but the dumb elements overwhelm that host. Napoleon ret.aats from Moscow with about two hundred thousand men, a mighty nucleus for another campaign after he gets back to Paris. Tha morning of October 19, when thoy start for home, is bright and beautiful. The air is tonic, aud although thi3 Russian campaign has been a failure Napoleon will try again ia some other direction with his host of br/vo surviving Frenchmen. But a cloud comes on the sky and the air gets chill, and one of the soldiers feels on his cheek a snowflake. and then there is a multiplication of these wintry messages, and sorm 4-U* nltimac s\f M-iq rtfflnars nvci tvifc'l nn other style of plume, and then all the skies let loose upon the warriors a hurricane of snow, and the march becomes difficult, and the horses find it hard to pull the supply train, and the men bsgin to fall under the fatigue, and many not able to take another step lie down in the drifts never to rise, and the cavalry horses stumble and fall, and on9 thousand of the army fall, and ten thousand perish, and twenty thousand go down, and fifty thousand, and a hundred thousand, and a hundred and twenty thousand and a Uuudred and thirty-two thousand die, and the victor of Jena and bridge of Lodi and Eylau and Austerlitz, where three great armies, I commanded by three emperors, surrendered to him; now himself surrenders to the snowflakes. Historians do not seem to recognize that the tide in that man's life turno i from Dec. 16,1809, when he banished by hideous divorce his wife Josephine from the palace, and so challenged the Almightv, and the Lord charged upon him from the fortress of the sky with ammunition of crystal. Snowed under! Billions, trillions, quadrillions, quintrillions of flakes did the work. And what a suggestion of accumulative power, and what a rebuke to all of us who get discouraged because we canuot do much, and therefore do nothing 1 , "Oh," says some one, "I would like to stop the forces of sin and crime that are marching ;for the conquests of the nations, but I am nobody; I have neither wealth nor eloquence ;nor social power. What can 1 dor' Mv brother, how much do you weigh? As much as a snowflake! "Oh, yes." Then do your share. It is an aggregation of small influences that will yet put this lo3t world back into the bosom of a pardoning God. Alas that there are so many men and women who will not use th? ona talent becauss they have not' ten, and will not give a penny D3cau3a tuey jaunotgivea dollar, and will not sp?ak as well as they can because they are not eloquent, and will not be a snowda'xe because tney cannot bean avalanche! In earthly warj the generals get about all the credit, but in the war for God and righteousness and heaven all the private soldiers will g3t crowns of victory unfailing. When we reach heaven?by the grace of God may we all arrive there?I do not think we will D3 able to be^m the new song right away because of the surprise we shall feel at the comparative rewards given. As we are being conducted along the street to our celestial residence we will begin to ask where live some of those who were mighty on earth. We must ask, "Is So-and-so here ,', And the answer will ba: "Yes, I think he is in the city, but we don't hear much of him; ho was good and he got in, but he took most of his pay in earthly applause; he had enough grace to get through the gate, but just where he live? I know not. He squeezed through somehow, although I '.?<? eHwl-c r\9 hiu crnr< i ii i u it. tut? uiuA. buv to vi nw tjw. monts. I thiuk be lives in ona of thosn back streets in one of tli; plainer residences;." Then we shall see a palace, the doorsteps of gold, ami the windows of agat'*, ana tha tower like the sun for brilliance, und chariots before the door, and people who look like princes and princesesgoing uu and down the ste^, and we shall say, "What one of the hierarchs lives here?" That must be tlie residence of a Paul or a Milton, or some ona whose name resounds through all the planet from which we bavo just ascended." "No, no,'" says our celestial dragomau; "that is the residence of a soul whom you never heard of. "When she gave her charity her left hand knew not what her right hand did. She was mighty in secret prayer, and nt> ona but God and her own soul knew it. She had mrn*A trnnhlft than nnvhnrlxr in nil thft land where she lived, and without complaining she bore it, and though her talents were never great, what she had was all consecrated to God and helping others, and the Lord is making up for her earthly privation by especial raptures here, and the King of this country had that place built especially for her. The walls began to go up when her troubles and privations and consecrations began on earth, and it so happened?what a heavenly coincidence!?that the last stroke of the trowel of amethyst on thosa walls was given the hour sho entered heavon. "You know nothing of her. On earth her namo was only ouce in the newspapers, and that among the column of tlio dead, but she is mighty up here. There she comes now out of her palaca grounds in her chariot be Ui?.m U1U3U tV>U WU1I/U IH?1 IUI %Z I llln Ull LUt7 bauks of the river that flows from under the throne of God. Let me see. Did you 1106 have in your world below an old classi.: 1 which says something about 'these aro ihoy I who come out of great tribulation, and they shall reign for ever and ever?'" As we pas3 up the street Illnd a good many on foot, ivnd I say to the dragoman: "Who are those'!'" And when their name is announced I recognize that some of them were on earth great poets, and great orators, and great merchants, and great warriors, and when I express my surprise about their going afoot the aragoman says: "In this country people are rewarded not according to the numbor of their earthly talents, but accordVogto the use they made of what they had." ' - a '> 'V w*.-? - jvr:<. r: J+4 ?-? And then I thought to myself: "Why, that theory would make a snowflako that falls cheerfully and in the right place, and does all the work assigned it, as honorable as a whole Mont Blanc of snowflakes." "Yes, yes," says the celestial dragoman, "many of these pearls that you find on the foreheads of the righteous, and many of the gems in the jewel case of prince and princess, are only the petrified snowflakes of earthly tempest, for God doss not forget the promise made in regard to them, They shall be Mine, said the Lord of ho3ts, in the day when I make up My jewels.'" Accumulated power! All the prayers and charities and kindnesses and talents of all the good concontered and compacted will be the world's evangelizition. This thought of th9 aggregation of the many smalls into that owe mighty is another treasure of the snow. Another treasure of the snow is the suggestion of the usefulness of sorrow. Absence of snow last winter made all nations sick. That snowles3 winter has not yet ended its disasters. Within a faw wanks it nut tens of thousands into the grave, and left others la homes and hospitals gradually to go down. Called by a trivial name, the Russian "grip," it was an international plague. Plenty or snow means public health. There is no medicine that so soon cures the world's malarias as these white pellets that the clouds administer?pellets small enough to be homeopathic, but in such large d03es as to be allopathic, and melting soon enough to be hydropathic. Like a sponge, every flake absorbs unhealthy gases. Tne tables of mortality in New York and Brooklyn immediately lessened when the snows of last December began to fall. The snow is one of thegrandest and best of the world's doctors. "Yes, "it Is necessary for the land's productiveness. Great snows in winter are generally followed by great harvests next summer. Scientific analysis has shown that snow contains a larger percentage of ammonia than the rain, and hence its greater power of enrichment. And besides that, it is a white blauket to keep the earth warm. An examination of snow in Siberia showed that it was a hundred degrees warmer under the snow than above the snow. Alpine plants perished in the mild winter of England for Jack of enough snow to keep them warm. Snow strikes back the rich gases which otherwise would escape in the air and be lost. Thank God for the snows, and may those of .b'ebruary oa as pientuui as tnose or uecember and January have been, high and deep and wide and enriching; then the harvests next July will embroider with gold this entire American continent. What mellowed and glorified Wilberforce's Christian character? A financial misfortune that led him to write, "I know not why my life is spared so long, except it be to show that a man can be as happy without a fortune as with one." What gave John Miltcn such keen spiritual eyesight that be could see the battle of the angels? Extinguishment of physical eyesight. What is the highest observatory for studying the stare of hope and faith and spiritual promise? The believer's sick bed. What proclaims the richest and most golden harvests that wave on all the hills of heavenly rapture? The snows, the rleep snows, the awful snow3 of earthier calamity. Ana tuai comiorcmg uauugut is one of the treasures of the mow. Another treasure of the snow is the suggestion that this mantle covering the earth is like the soul after it is forgiven. "Wash me/' said the Psalmist, "and I shall be whiter thiu snow." My dear friend Gasherie De Witt went over to Geneva. Switzerland, for the recovery of his health, but the Lord had something b9tter for him than earthly recovery. Little did I think when I bade him good-bv one lovely afternoon on the other side of the sea to return to America, that we would not m9et again till we meet in heaven. As he lay one Sabbath morning on his dying pillow in Switzerland, the window open, ne was looking out uoon Mont Blanc. The air was clear. That great mountain stood in it4* robe of snow, glittering in the morning light, and ray friend said to h's wife: "Jennie, do you know what that snow in Mount Blanc make3 mo think of? It makes me think that the righteousness of Christ and th9 pardon of God cover all the sins and imperfections of my life, as that snow covers up that mountain, for promise Is tliat tliougu our sins De as scanet, i they shall bo as white as saow." Was not that glorious? I do not care who you are, or where you are, ycu need as much as I do that cleansing which made Gasherie De Witt good while he live! and glorious when he died. Do not take it as the tenet of au obsolete theology that our nature is corrupt. We must be changed. We must be made ov>r again. The ancients thought that snow water had especial power to wash out deep stains. Allother water might fail, but melted snow would make them clean. Well, Job had great admiration for snow, but he declares in substance* that if he should wash hi9 soul in melted snow he would still be covered with mud, like a man down in a ditch (Job ix., 80). *'If I wash myself in snow water, aud make my hands ever so clean, yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch and mine own clothes shall abhor me." {?? tii a fnun t.a 1 n nf O lillUV UO fTCNUVU iu VMW ws God's mercy before we can be whiter 3han snow. "Without holiness, no man sball see the Lord." Oh, for the cleansing powerl If there he in all this audience one manor woman whose thoughts have always been right, and whose actions are always right, let such a one rise, or if already standing, lift the right hand. Not one! All we, lilte sheep, have gone astry. Unclean 1 unclean! And yet we may be made whiter than snow whiter than that which, on a cold winter's morning, after a night of storm, clothes the tree from bottom of trunk to top of highest branch, whiter than that which this pour makes the Adirondacks, and the Sierra Nevada and Mount Washington heights of pomp and splendor fit to enthrone an archangel. In the time of Graham, the essayist, in one taountain district of Scotland an average of ten shepherds perished every winter in the snow drifts, ami so be proposed coat at/ mo i distance of every mile a pole fifteen feet high and with two cross pieces be erected, show- ' ing the points of the compass, and a bell I hung at the top, so that every breeze would ring it, and so the lost one on the mountains would hear the sound and take the direction given by this pole with the cross pieces and got safely home. Whether that proposed flan was adopted or not I do not know, but declare to all you who are in the heavy and bliuding drifts of sin and sorrow that there is a cross near by that can direct you to home and peace and (*od; and hear you not the ringing of the gospel bell hanging to that cross, saying, "This u the way; walk ye in it/' Useful In thn Criminal Court, The phonograph in China is a veritable missionary. One mandarin of the rank of the blue button bought one and went to work using it. It was an eye-opener. He was amazed at its mysterious delicacy and power. If Ahinu'dnna nrnrlnpo SH<*ll a niftl'VelloUS cre&tiou their language aud literature were worih studv. So he, at Gl years of age, went to work learning the English alphabet. He also bought three more phonographs at one hundred and fifty dollars each, and forwarded them to the imperial court in care of his brother, a high officer, who haj access to the sjn of heaven, and is not slow in brioging before his august majesty the possible rival of the Ioqr revered ancestral tablet. It is one thing to bow to a bit of wood with the name or words of a deceased father on it3 painted surface. It is quite another thing to hear again the real voice and tones of the long dead uttering its loving benediction or thundering out its authoritative menace. Meanwhile the editors of Chinese papers, not to be behindhand in appreciation, have expressed their admiration of tins new work of foreign devils. It is urged that every criminal court {should have <"ne. The confessions of the accused, the testimony cl witnesses, aud all the details of evidence are recorded l>y this incorrup- ' tib'e scribe, aud may be reviewed bv I that court or a higher one at any time, j without any possibility of mistake. Or- j ders for executioi or any other import- , ant dispatches can be spoken to this uu- i erring messenger and sent with the sat* j isiacrjou UI HUUHIIIK Will uuuuu, V.-.. bribe or tamper with it, but that the order comes, literally, from the lips ol 1 the magistrate, as if he were himself i present. | < When traine3 ia the way you should < go?go ahead. j' , 1 SABBATH SCHO0IJ INTERNATIONAL LESSON FOB MARCH 1. lesson Text: "The Shnnaramito'l Son,'- 2 Kings ifa 25-37? Golden Text: John v., 21 ?Commentary. -y . After the dividing of the Jordan to allow Elisha to recross it and the healing of the waters of Jericho, both of which events ware in last week's lesson, another miracle.in connection with water is recorded in chapter iiL In the beginning of chapter iv. we have* the record of a miracle in connection with oil; and these three miracles of the spring healed, the ditches filled and the oil multiplied were all wrought by God through Elisha on behalf of the perishing.the troubled and the needy. The God of Elisha is our God. and of Him it is written, "My God shall supply all your need" (Phil. iv.. 19). 23. "So she went and came unto the man of God to Mount Carmel." Our lesson bo? gins in the midst of the story of this woman who dwelt at Shunem, a village a few miles south of Mount Tabor and southeast from . Mount Carmel, She is called a great woman (vs. 8), and she had prepared a room in her house for Elisha where ha might rest and feel at home when passing that way. She had no children, but God gave her a son for her kindness to His servant. One day, when the child had grown, he went out to the field to his father, was taken ill, carried home to his mother, sat on her knees till noon and then died. She laid him on the prophet's bed and tnade haste to reach che prophet with the tidings. Notice the title fiven to Elisha eight times in this story-seven time*. "Man of God" and once "Holy Man ofcGodJ^ It is also applied to Elijah, and in I Kings xiii. is used at least fourteen times of another prophet. We are either men and women of. God or of the world. What savs our daily life? 26. "Run now, I pray thee, to meet her; and say unto her, Is. it well with thfe?T The man or God saw her afar off and thus commanded his servant to meet her and make inquiry for the health of herself, her husband and her child. "And she answered, It is well." The soul in which the Prince of Peace rules shall have t>eace at ftll times. ?wn in ti*ihiil?tinn /Tmt ix., 6, T: xxvi., 3; Jer. xxix., 11; John xvi, '63). 27. "And when she came to the man of God to the hill, she caught him by.tlrt feet". So did the women to Jesus on the motaing of His resurrection (Atatt. xxviii., 9). Another woman one day washed His feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair, kissed them and anointed them with ointment (Luke vii.i 38). "Let her alone; for her soul is vexed within her, and the Lord hath hid it from me.n Gehazi would have thrust her away as did the disciples of Jesus many a time (Matt. xiv., 15: xv., 23; xix., 13); Gehazi had so 1fcr tie of the spirit of his master, the discipm. bo little of the Spirit of Christ. And what shall we say of ourselves? PS. "Then she said, Did I desire a? son of my lord? Did I not say, Do not deceive me?". Her words to Elisha when he promised her a son are found in verse 16. Her word* now seem to say, better for me never to hare had this child than to have received him for only these few years. Although 6he said, "It is jpeace," her soul was evidently bitter within 29. "Then he said to Gehazi, Gird up thy loins, and take my staff in thine hand ana go thy way, and lay my staff upon the face of the child." The prophet seems to understand that thd child is dead, and with these words he sends his servant. Better if J;e had at once done as Elijah did in a similar case (I Kings xvii., 21). If the disciples of Jesas could not cast out the demon from the boy (Matt, xvii., 19, 20), much less could Gehazi with the prophet's staff do anything for this dead child. Gehazi could obey strictly his master's orders, but he had not enough of the spirit of his master to do liis master's work. 30. "And the mother of the child said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will x * i-1 li CU.U. iiA T31J IIUl) IBttVC LLiCC. 1UU3 U1U JCilUIUI fitter (V VI" jab three different times, aud he is now reminded of his own earnest desire to obtain a blessing. God says, "Ye shall seek Me aad find Me when ye shall search for Me with all your heart" (Jer. xxix., 13). Much of our praying is too formal to obtain anything from God, who regards the hsart and the heart's desire rather than the words which we us?. 31. "And Gehazi passed on before them, and laid the staff upon tho face of the child, but there was neither voice nor hearing." It is one thing to hold the truth and quite another to be held by it The prophet's staff in the hand of Gehazi was very unlike tho pree ence of the prophet himself" 33. "And when Elisha was come into the house, behold the child was dead and laid upon his bed." The child was in the prophets* v bed (vs., 31)?a use of it that the woman . never dreamed of when she prepared it for Elisha. When we are blessing others we are often unconsciously preparing a resting place for our own sorrows, a comfort for ourselves in time of trouble. The child was dead. We must believe that all who are not born from above are dead in sins, and that nothing but the voice of God can give them life (Eph. ii., 5;. John v., 25). 33. Ho went in therefore, and shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the ' Lord." It is no formal servant and staff business now, but hand to hand and heart to r-\ heart work with the dead child and the liv- ~ j ing God. Now he does as Elijah did. Ha sees and realizes that; the child is dead, and he prepares to take hold of God with as mach earnestness as when he sought the donbla portion of Elijah's spirit. Nothing under the sun is before him now but tnis dead child. He has but one aim, one object; one desire; and that is that the child shall live.' 34. "And he went up, and lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his month, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands." The chdd in the prophet's bed may suggest that the children must be placed in the warmest sympathies of our, hearts, and that our beds must witness our. criee. Our mouths must utter children's words, our eyes see as children.see ana oar hands take bold as children's hands; in other words we must make ourselves one with the children whom we would save. "And he stretched himself upon the child, and tho flesh of the child waxed warm." Spurgeon says that there is no stretching that is harder than to stretch one's self to a child. When we do this, however, in honest reliance upon God, there will surely be a response, the flesh of the child will wax warm. 35. "Then he returned and walked in the house to and fro; and went up and stretched himself upon him." Not in a moment, nor in a day, does the fullness of life come. We must take as cur mottot "Patient continuance in well doing'' (Rom. ii., 7), and remember that "In due season we shall reap if we faint not" (Gal. vi., 9). "And the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes." So we must not rest till there is * very manifest life. We must cover tha children with our compassion, take them to our hearts, work with them and pray for them, in wholehearted reliance upon God, until they can say: "I see Jesus as my own dear Saviour." 30. "So be called her, and when she was come in unto him, be said, Take up thy son." Elisha called his servant, and Gebazi called tuo woman, ana inus jMisua spue iu her. She was not deceived, but only tried. God is able to raise up even from the dead. 37. "Then she went in, and fell at his feet, and bowed herself to the ground, and j took up her son and went out." Her soul Is no longer vexed within her, but full of gratitude and adoration. Our souls shall be full to overflowing in that day when, in the resurrection, He shall give us back our: loved ones, and the glory that shall be re-' vealed shall far outweigh all the sufferings and separations of this present time. Why not anticipate those joys and praise Him day by duy for the glories which He has prepared for them that love Him??Lrsson-Hrlper. This country is reported to have 300 ;olleges and universities, against ninety-four in Europe, but the latter are far higher in rank, have 1,723 more j.1 i; proiossors tnuu over imuo umea aa nany institutions here, and 41,814 nore students than our 69,400. Uruguay has a healthy climate, ind. according to its tables of mortal-.ty for 1882, out of a total of 9,640 leaths, forty-five were of persons over, >ne hundred years of age. Its death rate is only 16.510 per ljOOO. - ,-r